HOUSE BUILDING

Housing starts are a useful leading indicator of economic activity. Recent figures for the world's four biggest economies reinforce worries about a global economic slowdown. In America, housing starts have fallen from their peaks of the past two years. And in Japan there is no sign of an upturn in residential construction; housing starts there continue to stagnate at levels well below those of the early 1990s. In Germany, new orders for residential building have plunged in recent months. This compounds worries about the unexpectedly sharp decline this week in German business confidence. In Britain, too, housing starts have also fallen considerably. Because housing starts jump about, a four-quarter moving average is used to capture underlying trends.